1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printer control method for computer control of a printer having multiple feed ports.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a printer equipped with multiple feed ports, loadable paper size may differ depending on the paper feed port. For example, in a case where a printer has two paper feed ports identical in planar shape but with one being of cassette design and the other of tray design, where the paper sizes that can be loaded in the respective paper feed ports are compared, the maximum size of the paper that can be loaded will be smaller with the cassette design than with the tray design, owing to the paper size limitation imposed by the dimensions of the cassette. As another example, where a printer is equipped with one feed port each on the front and back faces of the printer, and the paper discharge port is disposed on the front face of the printer, paper fed in through the paper feed port provided on the front face (hereinafter termed the front paper feed port) will travel on a double-back paper path inside the printer to be discharged through the paper discharge port, whereas paper fed in through the paper feed port provided on the back face (hereinafter termed the back paper feed port) travel along a direct paper path without double-back to be discharged through the paper discharge port. Since paper fed in through the front paper feed port must be of sufficient size for double-back to be possible, the minimum loadable paper size will be larger than for the back paper feed port.
Some printers of this kind, which allow printing using paper of any size specified by the user (hereinafter termed user-defined paper size), in addition to the standard paper sizes of A4, B5 and so on, is described in JP2005-342953A, for example.
When the user attempts to print with paper of user-defined paper size from a printer of the type discussed above, depending which the paper feed port is specified by the user, the user-defined paper size may lie outside the range of paper sizes that can be loaded in the specified paper feed port (such as being too small, for example), resulting in an experience of inconvenience.